1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer software and, more particularly to supporting applications using ghost agents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous application and subscription providers offer customer support services. It can be laborious, however, for customer service representatives (CSRs) to determine the causes of customer problems and subsequently resolve the customer's problems. Part of the difficulty for the CSRs arises from communication issues. That is, CSRs interface with customers of vastly different technical backgrounds and experience levels. Novice users can lack the terminology and expertise to describe problems in a manner meaningful to the CSRs. In contrast, extremely proficient users can experience application-specific problems that most CSRs are not qualified to address or to understand.
Additionally, even if no significant communication hurdles exist between a user and a CSR, it can still be difficult if not impossible to recreate the problem that a user experienced. Recreating the problem can be an essential step in resolving it. One common difficulty in recreating user problems is that users often cannot remember the exact sequence of events leading up to a problem. Another difficulty relates to user problems that occur intermittently or randomly. Intermittent or random problems can be impossible for a user to predict or purposefully trigger and can therefore be almost impossible for a CSR to replicate. Yet another difficulty can be that the user's problem is unique to the hardware and software environment used by the user. In such an instance, a CSR using different hardware and software will not be able to recreate the problem on the CSR's system. The more complex that the environment being supported by a CSR is, the more difficult it can be for a CSR to resolve user problems.
One illustrative environment in which CSRs have difficulty is a grid computing environment. A grid environment can be a distributed computing environment where computing, application, storage, and/or network resources can be shared across geographically dispersed organizations. In the grid environment, a variety of computing resources can be transparently utilized by users on an as-needed basis. Users can therefore consume computing resources in a manner similar to the commercial consumption of electricity and water. Accordingly, a grid computing environment can dynamically coordinate a collection of users, applications, and organizations with a multitude of resources provided by numerous computing devices.
Complicated interactions can occur between different grid-based applications, since the applications can share a common pool of computing resources. These complex interactions can be a significant the source of user problems. When informed of the user problems, however, a CSR can be unable to simulate the dynamic conditions within the grid environment that resulted in the problems. Additionally, a CSR may not be able to correct problems experienced within the supported application that result from flaws within other applications that share grid resources with the supported application. Consequently, in order to better support problems common to a grid environment, CSRs need better tools that facilitate the identification and resolution of user problems.